Dear Sir or Madam,

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I would like to request
some information relating to the enforcement of parking
restrictions, specifically penalty charge notices.

1. I would like to request the raw data set of parking tickets
issued in the name of the council within the last five year period
(22 July 2004 till now) broken down by:
date, time, location, narrative of infraction, current status of
case, next status of case, transaction details (ie. date, time and
method of payments made), officer ID.

2. I would also like to request any information regarding
‘reward’/bonus schemes/contracts in place for your parking
enforcement officers. This is envisaged to cover the details of any
systems, including (where bonuses are paid) the amount per officer
per year, for the last five years.

Regarding part 1. ideally I would like the location unit to be
'street' but if this is not practical then under your section 16
duty to advise and assist I would expect you to contact me to
discuss how you record this geospatial data so that I may narrow my
request in a way that works for both of us.

As a supplementary, under section 16, I would also ask that you
provide some detail about the recording processes of this parking
information. E.g. What software is used? What data fields are
recorded? What other data sets it links to, etc.

If this information is held by an outside contractor then it is
your responsibility under the FOIA to obtain that information.

If it is held by another public body then please can you inform me
of this and if possible transfer the request to that public body.
My preferred format to receive this information is by electronic
means. For both parts I would like the response to be in the form
of a raw text file, tab delimited, with text qualifiers where
required.

If you need any clarification of this request or if it is too broad
in any way please feel free to email me. If some parts of this
request
are more difficult to answer than others please release the
answerable material as it is available rather than hold up the
entire request for the contested data.

If FOI requests of a similar nature have already been asked could
you please include your responses to those requests. I would be
grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have received
this request, and I look forward to hearing from you within the
20-working day statutory time period.

Yours faithfully,

Neil Houston

Message from Mandy Weir, Performance Officer

Dear Mr Houston

Thank you for your request for information about parking ticket data.
Your request was received on 13 August 2009 and I am dealing with it under
the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, I will
let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

If you have any queries about this email, please contact me.

Yours sincerely

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|| |Mandy Weir |
|| |Performance Officer |
|| |Dover District Council |
|| |Council Offices, White Cliffs Business Park, Whitfield, Dover CT16 |
|| |3PJ |
|| | |
|| |Tel: 01304 872318 |
|| |Fax: 01304 872300 |
|| |Email: [1][email address] |
|| |Web: [2]www.dover.gov.uk |
|| | |
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|P Please consider the environment before printing this email |
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Dear Mr Houston

I am writing regarding your request for information, which I received on 13 August 2009. In that request, you were seeking information in relation to bonus or reward schemes for parking attendants and information relating to parking tickets issued during the last 5 years. I can confirm that our parking attendants do not have set targets and we do not offer any form of bonus or reward scheme.

With regards to parking tickets issued during the last 5 years, I can confirm that the District Council holds information falling within the description specified in your request. During the last 5 years the Council has issued around 100,000 penalty charge notices and we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for central Government it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2½ working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the Department is not obliged to comply with your request and we will not be processing your request further.

If you were to make a new request for a more narrow category of information, it may be that we could comply with that request within the appropriate limit, although I cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

Should you be unhappy with the response, for whatever reason, you are entitled to pursue any dissatisfaction through the Council's Complaints Procedure.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Mandy Weir
Performance Officer
Dover District Council
Council Offices, White Cliffs Business Park, Whitfield, Dover CT16 3PJ

Tel: 01304 872318
Fax: 01304 872300
Email: [email address]
Web: www.dover.gov.uk

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Hi,

Thanks for confirming what information you are able to provide, by
using the 'front end reporting' features of the system you use to
record PCN details.

I would just like to clarify - is it possible that the IT/database
administrator can produce the selected field extract from the
database backend (In my experience, databases often sit on MySQL/MS
SQL/Oracle backends - and the IT/database Administrator of the
system can often extract out information that the systems
'reporting' options don't allow).  

If the size of the data extract is too large for it to be
compressed (zipped) and emailed, then I am happy to provide you
with FTP details (the IT contact could transfer the files), or to
receive the data on a CD/DVD.  I understand that to produce some
reports in a 'paper' format is not the best for either of us.

Sizewise, the physical number of records will be no issue for me; I
cannot narrow down the request anymore than it already is.  (That
being a limited number of fields, by PCN issued, for the 5 year
period).

Obviously if some of the information is not held in the database
(perhaps regarding the payment status etc,) then I would not want
to trouble you by having someone to review the actual case records
(as I understand this would be above and beyond the £450/2.5 day
limit)

Thanks,
Neil

Dear Mr Houston

Thank you for your email. Please find attached a report that provides the majority of the information that you are seeking. We were not able to produce a report that shows the next status of case or the method of payment. However you should be able to work out the next status by looking at the current status provided within the report. In respect of the identification of the Civil Enforcement Officer, we could only report by name and not by number. This information has therefore been excluded as it is personal data and therefore exempt under the Freedom of Information Act by virtue of Section 40. Section 40 is an absolute exemption and therefore the Council does not have to consider the public interest test when applying the exemption.

Just to confirm that the Council do not use any kind of incentive or bonus system and the software provider is ICES.

I hope we have been able to provide you with enough information, but if for any reason you are unhappy with the response received you can express your concerns through the Council's complaints process.

Yours sincerely

Mandy Weir
Performance Officer
Dover District Council
Council Offices, White Cliffs Business Park, Whitfield, Dover CT16 3PJ

Tel: 01304 872318
Fax: 01304 872300
Email: [email address]
Web: www.dover.gov.uk

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